


Every Moment Matters

by Baxter54132



Category: Bleach
Genre: 100 Themes, F/M, NaNoWriMo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-04-29 11:47:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5126399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baxter54132/pseuds/Baxter54132
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A 100 themes IchiRuki collection</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> This is for nanowrimo, though I'll be posting weekly.
> 
> Since there are 100 themes they'll be about 400-600 words each.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

**1\. Introduction**

Today’s an important day.

Well, to most people it’s a pretty ordinary day, but for Ichigo no time of the year carries more significance. Not even his birthday.

Today’s the anniversary of his mother’s death. Usually Ichigo would spend this time running around with his family, but merely one year after the grand fisher incident he’s decided to change things up. The family is still coming, but they’re about 30 minutes back at his request.

His sole company for the morning strolls slowly to his right, their hands comfortably entwined as they walk down the row of tombstones. She’s wearing her large sunhat again this year and Ichigo almost wishes he could push it aside to read her facial expression. They continue on in silence, finally reaching their destination.

The gravestone looks the same as always. _Kurosaki Masaki_ is still etched near the top and there don’t seem to be any new chips. Ichigo takes a firm step towards the grave. Rukia joins him silently and her presence gives him strength.

“Hi mom.” Ichigo speaks firmly. “It’s good to see you again. I hope things have been well. I’ve been doing pretty good, saving the universe and stuff… Uh there’s someone I want to introduce you to.” Ichigo raises his right hand, naturally pulling Rukia’s connect limb up with him. “This is Rukia. She’s my girlfriend. She’s made my life hell, let me tell you. Dragging me into illegal activities, forcing me to do her job for her. Actually, you might’ve seen her last year...”

“Hey, that wasn’t all my fault.” Rukia cuts in without thinking. “The job wouldn’t have been bad if you were actually efficient at killing hollows, and Karin really should’ve known better than to stroll up to a cliff edge. Oh sorry…” Rukia drops Ichigo’s hand and turns away, embarrassed at having interrupted Ichigo talking with his mom.

Ichigo doesn’t hesitate and loops his arm through Rukia’s, ensuring she can’t step away. “See, she’s a handful right? But I wanted to bring her to meet you mom. With Rukia I’ve…” Ichigo pauses to remove Rukia’s sunhat, his eyes focusing on her instead of the grave. Rukia meets his gaze slowly, face still a little flushed from before. “I’ve had the best moments of my life.” Ichigo leans down to peck Rukia on the lips, pleased when a smile returns to her face.

She glances towards the grave, figuring that she should share a few words too. “Don’t let Ichigo fool you, he’s even more of a handful than his massive sword. But he’s also pretty great.”

The two teens watch the tombstone silently, and Ichigo swears the wind picks up for just a second. “I think she likes you.”


	2. Complicated

**2\. Complicated**

It doesn’t take long for Ichigo to realize that Rukia’s extremely good at every aspect of high school. She’s the number one pick for kickball, first to volunteer to solve a solution on the board, and even the first person to turn in their test on midterm day.

Considering how good she is at school, it’s shocking to Ichigo when he realizes she’s basically terrible at everything else. She can’t open juice boxes, she gets lost going in a straight line, and she insists on fighting with the television remote on almost a daily basis.

So when she asks Ichigo to go grocery shopping with her, his first instinct is to say no. Of course no isn’t an option with Rukia, even if she has to drag him to the store by his ear, which she does. Not that he doesn’t complain the whole way, which he also does.

Despite their struggles, Ichigo eventually finds himself behind a shopping cart as Rukia reads the ingredients list on a can of soup. “Seriously Rukia? Any soup is fine.” His comment falls on deaf ears as Rukia grabs a second soup can in order to compare them.

“Which one should I get?” Rukia asks, hoisting the cans in Ichigo’s direction. “I’ve been here three times already and I never know which one to get. I want to get ones that Yuzu and Karin will like.”

“You’ve been here three times already without buying one?” Ichigo can’t help but scoff at the ridiculous comment, but it finally sinks in why Rukia needed him to come along. “Get the chicken noodle and cream of asparagus. They’re both pretty good.”

“Oh… thank you.” Rukia turns back to the shelf, eyes scanning each row. Ichigo watches in mild amusement for thirty seconds as she searches, but quickly becomes bored when she starts over again from the top row.

With a shake of his head, Ichigo steps around his cart and nudges Rukia’s shoulder gently. “Move aside midget, I can find it.”

“I can handle it myself.” Rukia keeps her eyes trained forward as she responds. Her hard work’s rewarded as she finally locates a can of chicken noodle soup. “See? I’m perfectly capable?”

Ichigo rolls his eyes but continues searching, easily locating the cream of asparagus soup. He snags the can and waves it in her face with a smirk. “It only took you about 500 seconds too long.”

“You’ve just been here more than me, that’s all.” Rukia drops her can into the cart and walks away. “Come on Ichigo, I’ve got 23 more things on my list. Next up is pasta. There are so many different kinds, how do they even get it like that?”


	3. Making History

**3\. Making History**

Birthday gifts have never been Ichigo’s forte. He never knows what to get people, and even with his own family he always asks the other members for advice. It’s just too difficult, why can’t people make a list of things they want and then everyone can just choose something off the list?

That would be too easy. The birthday gift that’s needed right now is one for Rukia Kuchiki, and even though they’ve only known each other for five months so far, Ichigo wants this gift to be perfect.

Not because he cares a lot about Rukia, no that’s not it. He just… still needs to pay her back for saving his family one time.

Anyway, the reason doesn’t matter. Ichigo seeks advice from Renji, but his only advice is to be creative and personal

Ichigo doesn’t consider himself very creative or personal.

Personal, like giving her his old shoes? Or maybe his old substitute soul reaper badge. She might like a picture…

Come to think of it, Ichigo doesn’t have any pictures of the two of them at all. Most of their moments together have been near death experiences, or not in a place where cameras can reach.

Ichigo finally thinks he has a good idea.

-

“Happy Birthday Rukia.” Ichigo shoves the wrapped gift into her hands, his gaze diverted over her right shoulder.

Rukia seems surprised as she hoists the gift up to her face, giving it a gentle shake. “You didn’t have to do this.”

Ichigo shrugs, butterflies flittering in his stomach as she continues to shake the present. “We’re friends after all. You can just open if you want you don’t have to wait or anything.”

Rukia’s smiles at Ichigo’s impatient comment, wiggling her eyebrows when he finally makes eye contact. The wrapping paper rips easily, and Rukia comes face to face with… well she doesn’t know exactly what she’s looking at.

It seems to be a book, though it’s taller and wider than any book she’s ever seen. There’s nothing inside except for weird plastic sheets, why wouldn’t Ichigo put something inside? “Thank you?”

Ichigo grins as Rukia flips through the plastic pages, it’s pretty clear that she doesn’t have a clue as to what it’s for. “Do you want me to explain it?”

“I know what it’s for,” Rukia flips to the back page of the book thing, running her fingers against the hard exterior shell.

“What’s it for then?”

Rukia pauses, “Storing things in?” Her response comes out so genuine that Ichigo can’t keep a gentle smile off his face. Rukia would see it if she glanced up, but fortunately for the usually stoic teen she’s still entranced with her gift.

Ichigo puts one hand out and motions for her to hand him the book. “Here let me show you.” Rukia relents reluctantly, still not willing to admit she can’t figure it out. Ichigo reaches into his back pocket with his free hand, pulling out a photo he had forced her to take with him the previous day. The two of them were sitting on the roof during lunch, but other than that it was a pretty uneventful photo. “This is a photo album.”

“It holds photos?”

Ichigo nods, flipping open the cover and sliding his photo into the first plastic sheet. “We’ve been friends for a while now, and I thought we could keep track of cool things we do with this. If you wanted anyway, it’s fine if you don’t want to…” Ichigo shuts the book as he trails off, too nervous to look at Rukia.

He feels the book drawn out of his hands, “I love it Ichigo, thank you.” Ichigo grunts a response and spares a glance down, but Rukia is once again checking out the book. “Can we take a picture right now?”


	4. Rivalry

**4\. Rivalry**

Pokemon always confuses Rukia. The grass isn’t even that tall, yet how can a pokemon the size of a giraffe hide within it? Also in the safari zone, how do they know exactly how many steps the player has taken, and how do they transport you back to the starting area? Why doesn’t anyone care that ten year olds can basically run amok without any foreseeable consequences?

The thing that puzzles her the most is the weird character who she named DORK. He’s supposed to be the main characters rival, or something like that?

Rukia decides she wants to learn more about this weird character named DORK. The best way to do this is by bothering her favorite carrot top. He seems to be napping, but that’s easily fixed. “Hey Ichigo.”

Ichigo grumbles under his breath but keeps his eyes clamped shut. Rukia burns her gaze into the side of his head, smirking when he finally cracks one eyes open to shoot her a death glare. “What?”

Rukia rotates the screen to help aid with her question. “What do you know about this guy?”

Ichigo squints at the tiny gameboy screen. Rukia’s character’s standing on the SS Anne. It’s the long hallway in front of the captain’s office, and the rival character just walked up to stop them. “Which one?”

“The one that’s not me.” Rukia leans in so she can glance at the screen without turning it away from Ichigo. “The top one there.”

“Oh Gary?”

“I actually named him DORK, but yes that’s him.”

Ichigo pushes himself into a sitting position as he considers the ridiculousness of the question. “So what do you want to know about him?”

“What motivates him? Why does he follow me around like some kind of stalker, it’s not like I asked him to challenge me every thirty seconds.” Rukia seems genuinely concerned, her glare focused on the pixelated character named DORK.

“He’s your rival.”

“That’s not good enough motivation.”

“Sure it is, he wants to beat the main character. He keeps failing so he has to try again. It’s kind of noble how persistent he is. The main character should appreciate him more.”

Rukia shakes her head, “Would you like it if someone was waiting to challenge you around every corner?”

Ichigo shrugs, “I kind of already have that, both with Ishida and Renji. It’s alright…”

“How about us?” Rukia plops down on the bed, gameboy temporarily forgotten. “Are we rivals?”

The question surprises Ichigo, and he finds himself glancing down as he responds. “No I don’t think so.”

“What are we then?” Rukia leans in eagerly, curious as to what Ichigo really thinks of them. However, the red headed teen’s already flopping back down onto the bed, and he rolls away with a dismissal grunt.

When he speaks again his voice comes out just above a whisper. If Rukia didn’t have enhanced hearing abilities from training as a soul reaper she probably would’ve missed it. “I guess we’re friends.”


	5. Unbreakable

**5\. Unbreakable**

Ichigo always seemed like he could withstand anything. He took everything in stride, even her dumb drawings. He was able to come out victorious when face to face with the hollow who murdered his mother.

He somehow survived facing Renji, even though no one should live after losing that horrific amount of blood. All of this blew Rukia away, he’s just a human no human should have that much strength.

He learned shunpo in two days and somehow mastered it enough to move faster than Byakuya’s bankai, even taking a few extra seconds to gloat when they clashed swords.

So when she sees him slouching in class, completely ignoring everything around him, it nearly breaks her heart. How did this happen? It seems like yesterday when he saved Rukia from her execution, did he just come home and give up?

Rukia sits silently as class continues, eyes trained on her red headed friend. He scribbles down a few notes, but doesn’t seem too interested in what’s going on. Even from this distance she can see dark bags under his eyes, and she notices stiffness in his limbs when he accidentally drops his pencil and has to stoop over to pick it back up.

He almost looks… broken the way he is now. The whole idea seems illogical to Rukia, Ichigo can’t be broken. He can fight through anything, overcome any challenge, he beat Byakuya!

The school bell interrupts Rukia’s thought chain, and when Ichigo’s substitute soul reaper badge starts buzzing he rises quickly, still somehow seeming sluggish as he exits the classroom. Rukia’s phone rings as well, alerting her to a hollow nearby. Rukia decides that it’s time to take action. She’s not sure if she can solve all of his problems, but it can’t hurt to try.


End file.
